Seeing a progressive multiracial Malaysia is a reminiscence of my journey with Malaysian Airlines

7 Sept 2021

By Rowindy Lawrence

Being with Malaysia Airlines (MAS) for 11 years, I had the opportunity of seeing wonderful cultures and people around the world and I also had the chance to work with multicultural colleagues that hailed from Japan, Korea, South Africa, Argentina, China, and India, among others, as I remember.

Most of the countries that I had been to were progressive yet preserving with very high value when it comes to their history. Back home, Malaysia too was built upon the belief that one day it rises to occasion where race- and religion-based politics is a history of the past, just like the aspiration of the founding fathers of Malaysia – that Malaysia is a multiracial, multicultural and multireligious society and must be developed based on mutual respect and cooperation by all.

Seeing Upko being reformed from a Sabah native-based political party to a multiracial political party in 2019 and having involved in the decision making myself, and today seeing this Sabah-based multiracial party joining a larger family of a multiracial party i.e. Pakatan Harapan, is like materialising the aspiration of the nation founding fathers

Upko will contribute to the reform agendas while strengthening our cause to realise the Malaysian Agreement and how best Federal Constitution can be improvised. I have been observing friends from Pakatan Harapan talking about reform agendas and it is like me seeing other modern countries during my time with MAS. Their countries were modernised because of the reforms they have undertaken. I have a dream that one day I too could talk and share similar aspirations with fellow Malaysians. Friends in Pakatan like Yeo Bee Yin, Hannah Yeoh, Nurul Izzah, and others have been talking about it. Hence, in my opinion, Upko’s decision to join Pakatan is a step closer to achieving progressive and democratic Malaysian whose leaders are committed to reform agendas for the benefits of a multiracial, multireligious and multicultural society.

Oh well, we have landed at the end of the paragraph!

A pleasure to have you on board and thank you for reading!

Till next time.

RWY